TOW Vomit Tux
by SqutternutBosh
Summary: Another missing moment. What exactly did Chandler mean by vomit tux? A Joey Chandler friendship oneshot based in season 4, investigating the beginnings of the somewhat notorious, between Joey and Chandler at least, vomit tux.


Just a little one I wrote a while ago after seeing the episode in which Chandler referred to Joey's tux as 'vomit tux.' It intrigued me then so I typed this out as it came. Just a little bit of Joey/ Chandler friendship from when they were roommates for you to (hopefully) enjoy. Set towards the end of season 4.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters in this, just borrowed them. They are now safely returned.

Joey struggled to open the door with two heavy carrier bags hanging off his arms. The bulk of them were restricting the use of his arms and he was sure that the stretching plastic handles would rip under the pressure of the objects inside. He fumbled around for a few more moments, banging and scraping against the apartment door until at last, it swung open.

Chandler was sat inside, flicking through the TV channels. Joey could just see the top of his head over the top of the brown lounger. He lifted the two shopping bags and dropped them onto the counter with a loud thud. Chandler craned his neck around to look at his

roommate.

'What'd you…' he started, before he could properly see Joey. 'Hey, looking pretty spiffy there, Mr Tux.' Joey frowned slightly.

'What? My mom sent it to me to wear to Ross's wedding,' Joey explained, brushing off the sleeves of his tuxedo. Chandler lazily flicked off the TV, stood and walked over to the opposite side of the counter.

'Yes, of course, for the wedding. So, tell me, Joe… Why're you wearing it right now?'

'Well, uh… I was wearing it in, you know, make sure it fit and stuff. Then, I got hungry and tried to phone the pizza place but the line was busy. So, I went to the grocery store and… forgot about it until about right now when you mentioned it.' Chandler nodded.

'Well, I guess that's better than the time you tried to go to the store in just your dressing gown.'

'I did get some weird looks…' Joey reminisced.

'And you were never allowed there again… What's in the bags then?' Chandler asked, nosily rummaging through one of them.

'Pizza? Just… pizza?'

'It was buy one get one free!'

'But there's about ten of them!'

'I figured that if I bought five, I'd get five free.'

'So you _can_ count?' Chandler retorted. He pulled the ten pizza boxes out of the bag.

'Dare I ask what you have in there?'

Joey pulled down the edge of the second bag, revealing its contents to Chandler.

'Ice-cream?'

'Three for two.'

'So we now have nine tubs?'

'Well, eight actually. I ate one on my way back.'

'Didn't you get anything useful- like toothpaste?'

'Do we need toothpaste?'

'Well, when a certain someone wastes a tube drawing faces on the bathroom mirror, it would be handy if a certain someone bought a new tube of toothpaste.'

'Oh yeah…' Joey remembered fondly. 'I didn't get any of that kind of stuff, but I did get a spoon.'

'A-a spoon?'

'To eat the ice cream with!' Joey exclaimed, making a frustrated noise as if he was talking to somebody who couldn't quite comprehend the idea.

'I'm just glad you didn't buy a microwave to heat up a pizza with so that you're ice cream could have some company as you walked.'

'No… And none of the display units in the store were plugged in'

Chandler covered his face with his hands despairingly.

'You do realise we could get everything you just bought- already cooked- from the takeaway?' he asked.

'Yes,' Joey answered, putting strain on the word. 'But these were on offer!' He opened the freezer door. 'You didn't tell me we already had pizza!'

'Yes, well most people would think to check these things before stocking up! It's not like there's an earthquake coming and we need supplies!'

'Quit whining,' Joey said. 'There's only one other pizza here anyway… And some expired stuff I put at the back.'

'Great, I wondered what that smell was,' Chandler mumbled sarcastically. Joey placed a handful of expired products onto the counter, besides the shopping.

'Why were these in the freezer?' Chandler asked, crouching down to get a closer look at a jar of pickled onions. 'Gross, they look like something Ross would like to dig up. Some sort of swamp creature.'

'I dare you to eat one,' Joey said, grinning mischievously.

'What? No way!' Chandler said, straightening up.

'Aw, come on. I'll do it.'

'If you're really that stu-,' Chandler began, but Joey was already beginning to unscrew the lid. 'I shouldn't have doubted you.'

Joey took a cautious sniff of the opened jar, immediately whipping his head back away from it. A thin skin had formed on the top layer of the liquid and one of the ancient onions was poking up through it.

'Woah,' Joey wheezed. 'Do you have any idea how long these have been in here?'

'None whatsoever, my man,' Chandler replied. 'Are you-?'

But Joey had already dunked his hand into the jar, grabbed the slimy object and crammed it into his mouth. Chandler watched distastefully as Joey chewed with his eyes shut. After a few seconds, he swallowed heavily and opened his eyes which were watering slightly. He stuck his tongue in and out, curling it up.

'Now you go,' he said to Chandler, offering him the jar.

'Are you kidding me?'

'You're such a wimp, man.'

'Or maybe I just respect my body. You're body's a temple and all that,' Chandler said. 'Besides, I don't even eat those things when they're in date.'

'Fine,' Joey said, putting the jar down. 'How about this… this?' He reached for a lumpy object that was wrapped in cold foil. He ripped back the foil to discover a particularly mouldy chunk of cheese. Green fungus appeared to be forming at the corners and white veins seemed to be running through it. 'I think it's cheese.'

'Why is all of this stuff in the freezer?' Chandler questioned. Joey didn't answer.

'Cheese is supposed to taste better as it gets older,' he said. 'Right?'

'I thought that was wine?'

Joey waved the slab under Chandler's nose. He jumped back, coughing and spluttering.

'We have to get that stuff out of here- now.'

'Or, you could eat it,' Joey suggested, eyebrows raised. Chandler looked at him as if he was from another planet. 'What? Me and my cousin Frankie used to do this all the time. Waste not want not and whatever.'

'Yes and in this situation I _want not_… I can't believe you're doing this,' he added, as Joey took a bite out of the cheese.

'I needed to get the taste of that onion out of my mouth,' Joey said through a mouthful.

'Then have a glass of water!'

Joey proceeded to go through all of the items he had taken out of the freezer. He found some more cheese, old tins that neither of them had ever used as neither had any interest in cooking and other, unidentifiable food stuffs. He even discovered some of the dried fruit Eddie had manically shrivelled when he lived there. Chandler watched, mortified, unable to take his eyes off his friend as he challenged himself to have a bite of everything he found. Then, the brown stuff appeared.

It was either a congealed liquid or a solid that had melted and later frozen in the freezer. Joey, whose face had paled considerably, poked it with his index finger and it quivered, as if in anticipation.

'Oh no… Oh no, oh no, oh no! Please tell me you're not _actually_ going to put that in your mouth?' Chandler asked, wincing as Joey poked it again. 'We have perfectly good pizzas, courtesy of you _and_ a friend who's a great chef- why are you doing this?'

Joey shrugged. 'Dunno, it used to be fun when me and Frankie did it.'

'And is it now?'

'Not so much… But I can hardly leave this one thing! I made it through everything else and I have to beat this last one! Sure, I feel sick and that dancing elf in the corner is off putting-,'

'Dancing elf?' Chandler asked, eyeing Joey warily.

'-But I have to do it,' Joey continued, ignoring his friend's concern, waving a finger up in the air. 'In memory of Frankie.'

'Is he dead?' Chandler questioned, unsure of how to approach the subject.

'No, he moved to a different country.'

'Back to Italy?'

'No, Vermont.'

Chandler didn't even bother to correct him. Joey opened the drawer in front of him and picked up a spoon. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Gripping it, he raised it and, in what seemed like slow-motion, he lowered it down into the jar, breaking the surface. It was silent as he raised the spoon to his lips, parted them and slid the spoon in. He grimaced as he bit down on the stuff and Chandler cringed at the look on his face. He chewed slowly a few more times, eyes scrunched tightly together. He swallowed, looking somewhat pained.

'There, I did it,' he panted.

'And what an achievement it is,' Chandler muttered with the usual sarcasm. Joey's eyes widened suddenly.

'Oh, man, I'm gonna hurl,' he raced into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Chandler could hear the faint, but still horrible sound of vomit hitting the bowl as he swept all of the things that Joey had nibbled at into the bin. He heard the tap turn on as Joey splashed some cool water over his face.

A few minutes later, Joey emerged, his new tuxedo stained with the remnants of what he had just eaten. Chandler automatically took a step back, wishing to avoid contact with the ruined garment.

'Feeling better?' He asked sympathetically.

'Yeah, just that last one defeated me.'

'You were so close too,' Chandler praised sarcastically. 'Please don't ever do that again. It was absolutely disgusting and that smell… _yeuch_.'

Joey looked down at his wrecked shirt and jacket. It would take a lot of work to get those stains out and it would probably always smell of the brown goo. 'Now, I'm gonna have to rent one,' he moaned.

'At least you can say that nothing in the freezer went to waste,' Chandler commented, opening the freezer to put the new pizzas and ice cream into it.

'That's something.'

'Everything… except this,' Chandler stated, pulling a copy of 'The Shining' out of the freezer. Ice clung to the cover, frosting the worn pages. 'You get scared again?'

'It was that really creepy part in that room.'

'Oh yeah, that bit's good,' he agreed, flipping through the pages of the well-read and frosted book. He turned to Joey with a wicked grin on his face. 'I'll pay you fifty dollars to eat this book.'

I guess vomit tux wasn't actually that much involved in the end… Ah well, hope you enjoyed reading it anyway!


End file.
